JohnnyOV

Thanks for clearing that up, I was just going off the information he was feeding the koolaid drinkers... Be careful everyone, its starting to get warm outside, don't drink the spiked punch.

Our campus was located in Daytona Beach, which is covered by Daytona Beach Fire Department (ALS first response) and EVAC Ambulance(private, totally compensated, company with a northern VAC name [0 volunteers]). Campus Safety (not police) provided no BLS care prior to Fire/EMS arrival. Our QR team had a budget of $10,000 through Student Government Funding, for 5000 undergrads and 1000 grads; works out to a little less then $2 a person per semester to receive BLS care in under 3 minutes. A majority of time, all patients would be packaged, and waiting at the front door of the building by the time the ambulance arrived ready for transport. Vitals, Sample, full pt history all collected, documented and handed over to the ambulance made for an extremely efficient and quick turn over. Multiple times, over inoxicated students who had stopped breathing, presenting agonal breaths, or aspirating on their vomit were given life saving BLS care, up to 7 minutes before before ALS arrived on scene. Most of the EMT's now work for EVAC or for Daytona International Speedway EMS as a college job when they're not attending school or assisting out on campus.

This is the best advice out there so far. It was the exact same approach we took to get our organization up and running by 2007. If you are looking for more ideas, ncemsf.org is by far the best resource to get your program up and running. Having an "adult," who is from the faculty or administrative staff fully support your actions, is key to getting your organization running. You may have field experience from your local squad back home, and are damn good at talking and BSing your way through a buff conversation to make it seem like this is the cat's meow, but the Board will, and always will look at your organization as kids wanting to play doctor with real live patients with no oversight. Even when presented with case after case of other schools who had full ambulance services that were student run, the liability in today's age is priority on their list of what ifs. Get a faculty member/ fire chief someone who has some "adult experience" to vouch for your team and your efforts might be looked at with a different light. We went to our city/county's fire departments and office of emergency management and held numerous meetings with their approval and backing 100%. It makes a world of difference to have someone in a white shirt, with 5 bugles on their collar say, "this is a great idea," then three 19 year olds try and make their case.

Before you submit a letter of this intent to any board, or any formal letter, make sure you have someone proofread your work. Makes you seem very uneducated when you're trying to convey a point, and all that people can stare at are the multiple grammatical/spelling errors. Would I have agreed with what he was saying, absolutely not regardless of his grammatical mistakes... they may work only 7 days a month, however, they are working 24 hour shifts. 24x7 = 168 hrs/mo x 12mo = 2016 hrs/yr. Take a normal work week of 40 hrs/wk x 52 wks/yr = 2080 "working week day hours" in a year. or a difference in 2.6 work days per normal year. Add in a few company holidays and it appears that the normal buisness man actually works less then the firefighter, and I'm sure he gets his holiday, sick and vacation time as well on top of this... I'm sick and tired of people attempting to skew data to make it appear what it is not. Present the facts, not your personal agenda.

Beat me too it. They were very helpful in assisting me and 2 other guys getting our collegiate ems program up and running. It took almost 3 years for us to finally start responding to calls on campus, but through perseverance and dedication, the school officials realized how important it was to have a first response agency on campus. Response times to have an EMT on location went from an average 8-15 minutes down to 3 or less for 911 calls regarding medical runs... http://www.eraumed.com/

Just read the comments in the Lohud article. It really shows what people think about this law, and how little they actually care about our well being.

How can you not consent to profiling in some form or another in Law Enforcement? If you are on the look out for a white male who is 5"7 wearing a red shirt who just robbed a bank, aren't you canvasing the area, looking for that specific profile?

Also, maybe some of the more experienced guys here could help me find the laws regarding this. I cannot find the laws online

How can command be passed/assumed if the 2nd due department aren't on location? I never said the IC could not pass command. Command can be transfered to someone of equal or higher authority, face to face. Westchester County BCs have 0 operational jurisdiction, other then responding and acting as strictly a liaison, thus removing them from the actual chain of command. On a separate note, I think some of our BC's need to re-read their book on what their roles and responsibilities actually are. Calling for units when the IC never asks for them is quite outside their operational boundary. You've seen department X hand over department Y command at their incident in NYS? Not a mockery, but I'm actually curious as to what the circumstances were and what incident took place to let another department run their show. Seems like a legal nightmare to me. All I am saying is that legally, the Chief of the department, regardless of whether or not he is actually operating on the scene (i.e. tarrytown confined space incident) ultimately has legal responsibility for what occurs at each incident. Car 1 could be away at work and a fire with a LODD occurs because of some fault of the FD. That Chief is responsible for his men in NYS. Ethically the other officers might be responsible, but in a court of law the Chief is 100% liable. You could make bozo the clown your IC at your incident if you felt so compelled, the Chief would just have to answer to the judge on why.

Command cannot legally be passed onto a BC in Westchester county. The Chief of the Authority Having Jurisdiction is ultimately responsible for the incident. Passing it onto a County Coordinator, which has no authority in jurisdiction cannot work. You might be able to say that the BC has the IC over the air, and he/she might start calling the shots, but when something happens that requires an investigation to ensue, the department's highest ranking member on location, as well as the Chief of the department, as per NYS, are ultimately responsible for what occurs on the fire ground. The BC is strictly a liaison between the actual IC, and 60-Control, so the IC can focus on the incident. If you're referring to the guy who's acting as the liaison at the incident as command, to me that is not correct. Command is not the guy running the radio (I.e Batt X), Command is the guy running the show (Car X from department X).

If your home was deemed uninhabitable, and that the building needed to be destroyed and rebuilt by numerous engineers... would you really need a new home?

I kept hearing throughout the duration incident, and numerous times "Batt 13 to 60-control, as per the IC....." so it sounds like a typo / he misunderstood what the battalion was relaying to 60

Nothing taken personally, and if I did take it personally, its time to move away from the fire service. And I stand corrected then.

Whats wrong with having an agenda? Without an agenda, nothing would ever get done. Progression would never occur, in fact without an agenda, slavery would still be around. Just because he shines light on a topic that in my opinion needs to be looked at severely by each department doesn't mean he is a bad guy or has terrible ideas. They are just ideas that you do not agree with. Instead of throwing hands up in the air, cry the "beating the dead horse" routine, or "he just has it out for volleys," why not look and understand where he is coming from. We are the fire department. We are here to protect lives and property. Driving our 500K-1M dollar rigs around to communities near and far to show them off, doesn't really do our tax payers any good when their house burns down when we're not around. edit: it is ok, and actually takes a bigger person to look at someone else's views and realize "hey, maybe we need to look at it that way." You'll probably get more respect for listening to an idea, and then constructively debating it, then to just call someone ignorant.

Depends on where in NW Westchester you are. Central NW, it is a straight, 15 min shot down the Taconic. NE county could be anywhere from 20-45 minutes by ground depending on where in the back country you are. In my opinion, moving the base of STAT flight was a fantastic move. Prior to the move, basically any entrapment, or red-tag patient located anywhere in northern Westeschester was "immediately" brought to the medical center by the bird. This immediately however does not take into consideration waiting in a bus with the patient for the helicopter to land, ect. ect..... see this thread -

http://www.yorktownf...ent/operations/ - Yorktown website version http://maps.google.c...08&source=embed - Larger full screen version

With the general population not giving a crap about what we do anyways, and then to ask for money to fund the place, I never see this happening, nor do I want to see it happen. It is a waste of money that can be better spent else where.

Government, should not be spending money to restore, maintain, store any antique apparatus, or tools. It is a waste of taxpayer money imo, and irks me to see departments budgeting money year after year for it. What benefit does it give the taxpayer? Nothing.

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Or, they could have asked if they were EMT/PM/FR and the last time a round of vitals were taken... if you cant trust the guys working next to you, what is the point of having them there in the first place? At school, our medical first response team built up such a great working relationship with the local FD and Ambulance service that when the Fire Department arrived, unless it was an ALS run, there was almost no need for them. They saved equipment, and were more then happy to get a short break and view the "college scenery." When the ambulance arrived, in the bus they went without waiting, and the bus drove off. Knowing who you're working with, and building a rapport, even if its the first 5 seconds on a scene, is critical for smooth patient transfer from agency to agency and will provide the patient with a faster more efficient transfer from the scene to the hospital.

What a crappy situation the baby momma was in

As much as the general population aggravates me, and while I have zero sympathy for people who bring harm to themselves, we still, regardless of law, have a sworn duty that we signed up for to help people, regardless of the cause. Nothing would ever make me turn my back on someone who needs help; its what we signed up to do, and if you don't like it anymore, there is the door.

I am going to get on my very young and gung-ho soapbox right now and speak my mind. Feel free to let the flame war ensue since I'll be opening Pandora's Box right now. Currently we have numerous, very active threads going on in the main board and that is fantastic. I am happy to be part of a very active discussion board that allows for open discussion on any topic we so choose totalk about. There is always a new post or discussion or someone chiming in on something that provides a new direction, or insight on the topic. What does bother's me though, is the priorities that I feel many people have, as to what is actually important to the fire service, and it reflects on the types of threads posted and the activity of each thread. Currently we have threads about types of colors on chiefs cars, blue lights, other secondary/tertiary discussions as to who should have what. I have no problem with these threads as they enlighten others as to certain laws and other regulatory information. What does bother me though is when you have a member post a topic about resources in the county and what department has special teams, only one person answers… Why? Do we really care so little about preplanning and foresight before an incident that we would much rather discuss the correct angle of chevrons over running an incident efficiently and smoothly? I know I personally was really looking forward to seeing what departments have around the county, so in case my department ever needs assistance to something we cannot ourselves handle butsomeone else can, they can be called upon. We also have the "Tactical considerations" forum, which is a fantastic idea, but it rarely gets used, and when it does, only 2-5 people chime in with an answer. If you're wrong with an answer, who cares? It's only online training and you'll learn from your mistake. It's better done here, then out at an actual incident. Sure I like to "buff out" every now and then as much as the next guy and get ideas from apparatus photos, but I think proactively talking and learning from other people about pre planning actual operations, or what an IC would have done differently at a fire is much more important then who won what at who's parade. There is such a vast wealth of knowledge on this board, it puzzles me that no one wants to actually release information for whatever reason they so choose. Not a day goes by where I do not learn something new about the fireservice, and this board has definitely supplied me and numerous other people with a plethora of information. I can only hope that more people talk about the operational and tactical side of the fire service, as to me this is what truly matters and where departments stand out. The general population does not care about your roto-ray, or your undercover chief's car. They want their fire put out quickly and efficiently and their family member cut out of their car without any more harm being done. Sure things look cool, but to me, what is far, far more important is providing a homeowner or taxpaying company relief when we show up because operationally, we look like an organized, well oiled army doing everything in our power to help them out. I'm not sure if I'm totally off base here and singling myself out, and this is no way a shot at anyone in particular but this is just an observation I have been making over the last few months and felt like it was time to share my opinion. edit: transfered from M.Word and the format was screwed up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg9qnWg9kak&feature=player_embedded I dont see this hitting the US "legally" anytime soon, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't be on the look out for small apartments like this.

As the other view, I would rather have it on the operators side. I always operate with one leg up against the hose so I can feel any change in pressure in the hose line, especially when getting fed from a tanker operation, before my pump starts to cavitate from a lack of water pressure.